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Re: Really struggling with lots of pain (sorry long)

Good afternoon ladies

Just thought I would drop by with an update on my situation. I wish that it was a better one though. I am still nursing in pain, on Advil around the clock, and continue to have large sores on both nipples that won't heal. Even the IBCLC is stumped and doesn't know what's wrong and why I won't heal. She has looked at her latch multiple times not and doesn't think that is the problem. I am in the middle of my second 2 weeks of Diflucan and have done 2 rounds of gentian violet as well as taking grapefruit seed extract and probiotics and have had LO on nystatin for possible thrush with little apparent benefit. We have had her tongue clipped already and it now moves freely.
I never thought that after 9 weeks I would still be having all of this difficulty. She transfers milk well and is gaining and growing well. It was suggested that she might just need to get a little bit bigger so her mouth would grow but 6 weeks later there is still no change even though she has grown quite a bit.
I am at a loss and don't know where to go from here. I am feeling pretty defeated and am starting to accept that I will just have to nurse in pain as long as I can take it and live on Advil for the next year.

Re: Really struggling with lots of pain (sorry long)

I am so sorry your update isn't a happier one. I know what you are going through is AWFUL. FWIW, I reached the same place of acceptance- that breastfeeding was going to be terrible, that I was going to be in pain for a full year because that is how long I was committed to doing it. At 9 weeks I had the big sores. At 12 weeks I still had them. At 16 weeks... Suddenly I noticed that one of them was getting a little smaller. At 4.5 months, they finally healed. My point is, you don't know when things could suddenly turn around. So keep a kernel of hope in your heart. You're amazing for coming this far! You have to be so tough.

Re: Really struggling with lots of pain (sorry long)

Thank you mommal. That gives me hope that at some point down the road this might get better and i will be able to nurse my daughter without pain. I truly do want to nurse to at least a year, or at the very least give breast milk to a year and I am jsut too darn stubborn to give up and admit failure!!

Re: Really struggling with lots of pain (sorry long)

Thank you so much. Your support and information really helps me push through this. I know this will get better someday. I have faith that with enough persistence, prayer, and Advil I can get through this.

Re: Really struggling with lots of pain (sorry long)

Just wanted to stop by with an update and let ya'll know where things stand. I had an appointment with another BF medicine physician to see if there was any medical reason why I am just not healing. I have noticed that i have some drainage from the wound and was started to suspect that I had a bacterial infection and she thought the same thing. She sent cultures to see if we can find out what it is and started me on antibiotics. She will change the antibiotics once the culture and sensitivities come back if that's appropriate. She though Reagan's latch looked really good and that there was nothing anatomically with Reagan that she could say was causing a problem. She suspects that even though we have fixed a number of things that having the wounds infected would prevent them from healing and therefore cause a persistence of the pain I have been having while nursing.

Right now I am only nursing on the left and I am pumping the right side for the most part. I do feed her from the right side usually the first feeding of the day and it has been painful but tolerable. I am hoping that by nursing a little less and pumping a little more combined with antibiotic therapy that we can get these wounds to heal and I hopefully can move on to a healthy pain-free nursing relationship with my daughter. The only positive thing is that with all this pumping I am able to build up a pretty good freezer stash. Sometimes I am supplementing with a bottle after she feeds off the left and sometimes she seems satisfied so I am able to put anywhere between 10 and 20 oz into the freezer everyday. Each bag I put in there is one more feeding of my BM that she will get if I end up having to give this up because I just won't heal so that is very motivating.

Thanks for all your information and support. It's pretty bad when I have multiple IBCLC's stumped as to why I continue to have pain and refuse to heal.